Over
the past two decades scholars of the English Reformation have for the most part
been divided into two competing schools of thought, understanding the reforms
of that era within the context of two rival historical narratives.These two schools are generally known as
theWhig-Protestant
school (a name used mainly by its opponents), which is characterized by the
approaches of A. G. Dickens, G. R. Elton, and Joseph Block, and the revisionist school, including figures
such as Christopher Haigh, J. J. Scarisbrick and Eamon Duffy.Though scholars grouped within either of
these schools do at times differ over specific points, the Whig-Protestant and
the revisionist camp each shares among its adherents broad characteristics that
make it possible to group them in this way.The two schools of thought are best understood by contrasting the one
with the other, as the two schools give
differing accounts of the nature, sources, and success of the Henrican
Reformation.Interpreting a large
amount of evidence from contrasting perspectives, these two schools continue to
battle over the now-contested ground of the English Reformation under the reign
of Henry VIII.

1.The Nature of the Henrican Reformation

To
Whig-Protestant historians, the Reformation under Henry VIII (and the English
Reformation generally) was essentially the rise of Protestantism against the
backdrop of late medieval Christendom.The Reformation is understood in positive terms, as the establishment of
a reformed church with a reformed spirituality.A. G. Dickens is characteristically Whig-Protestant when he opens
his revised 1991 edition of The English
Reformation in these terms, "In England as elsewhere, the Protestant
Reformation sought first and foremost to establish gospel-Christianity, to
maintain the authority of the New Testament over mere church traditions and
human inventions" (p. 13).The
positive vision of reform takes center stage, and all else, including medieval
Christianity, are viewed in relation to it.While Dickens views the Reformation as primarily theological in nature,
his fellow Whig-Protestant G. R. Elton sees it in political terms, but still positive political terms, as the rise of
the modern nation-state.Within either
Dickens' theological or Elton's political interpretation, the reforms under
Henry VIII were constructive, establishing a new vision for English
Christianity.The narrative of
Reformation is a positive narrative of advancing Protestantism.

Revisionist
historians by contrast have tended to understand the Protestant reforms in
negative terms.For Eamon Duffy, the
Reformation was "the attack on traditional religion."In The
Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c.1400c.1580, he
writes, "Iconoclasm was the central sacrament of the reform" (p.
480).The reforms are seen as
destructive, a shattering of a meaningful and vital religious consensus.Duffy understands the reforms, not in light
of the ideology of the reformers, nor in light of the vision they hoped to
establish.The reforms are viewed
through the eyes of the traditional religious practices which they sought to
bring to an end.This understanding of
the nature of reform as negative is evident in Duffy's structuring of his book
into two parts, the former, comprising the first two-thirds of the book, is
topical and static, describing traditional religion in the century before Henry
VIII.The latter third of the book is
chronological, describing the destruction of this late medieval consensus.Indeed, in The Stripping of the Altars, the reader must wait until page 377
before the first altar is stripped, suggesting to some Duffy re-title his work,
The Altars that were Stripped.

This
negative understanding of the nature of reform is not unique to Eamon
Duffy.In his 1984 book The Reformation and the English People,
revisionist historian J. J. Scarisbrick spends more than a third of the book
describing in a static manner English religion before Henry's break with Rome,
only to title his chapters on the Reformation itself as "The Old Order
Disintegrated" and "The Spoliation" before coming back for a
discussion of the survival of the old faith at the end of his book.Christopher Haigh in his 1993 volume English Reformations:Religion, Politics and Society under the
Tudors, summarizes the Henrican reforms in equally negative terms,
"Henry VIII disposed of the pope, the monasteries, four of his wives, and
two of his closest advisers.There was
constant muttering against religious change, and there were dangerous
rebellions" (p. 295)While
Whig-Protestant historians have looked forward and seen the Henrican reforms
positively as the early rise of a renewed Christian and Protestant vision for
England, revisionist historians have looked back to an earlier medieval
religious consensus and understood the reforms under Henry negatively as a
violent assault on traditional religion.For the former school of thought, the reforms under Henry VIII are the
beginning of the story; for the latter school, the Henrican reforms are an
attack on the story.

2.The Sources for the Henrican Reformation

Not
only do Whig-Protestant and revisionist historians differ over the nature of
the Henrican Reformation, they also disagree over the sources for the reforms
under Henry VIII.Whig-Protestant
historians, again looking forward to future Protestant dominance in England,
have tended to work with a developmental model of history which expects to find
precursors to reform before Henry's break with Rome.While giving Henry a primary place of importance, Whig-Protestant
scholarship has tended to look for support for the Reformation "from
below."For A. G. Dickens, the
primary reason for the English Reformation lies in the theological bankruptcy
of late medieval Catholicism, the popular reaction to which had been visible in
Lollardism and popular anticlericalism, as Dickens has argued in numerous
studies since the 1950s.When a legal
alternative to medieval religion became possible in Protestant reforms, the
majority of the English populace followed these reforms, not merely out of a
grudging obedience to the Crown, but further because they themselves were
easily persuaded.The people, in short,
were beginning to think like Protestants, and only a minority would retain
their ties to Catholic religion.

More
recently, Whig-Protestant scholarship has continued to emphasize popular
discontent with late medieval religion, in particular understanding the
Lollards as proto-Protestants who laid a foundation for the popular reception
of Protestant ideals.Anne Hudson takes
this approach in her 1988 study The
Premature Reformation:Wycliffite Texts
and Lollard History, arguing from diocesan records for a survival of
Lollardism through the crucial years of 14301480, and arguing that the rapid
increase in Lollard heresy trials after 1480 is due to what she proposes was an
increased, coherent and influential Lollard presence.Margaret Aston had contended in her 1984 study Lollards and Reformers:Images and Literacy in Late Medieval
Religion that Lollardism, while lacking respectability in the century
before Henry, had nevertheless survived in the midst of a substantial popular
anticlericalism.

Similarly,
Joseph R. Block, who describes himself as a "vulgar empiricist" in
his 1993 Factional Politics and the
English Reformation seeks to demonstrate from a study of clerical patronage
that Reformation ideas from the Continent blended easily with "native
religious dissent" and "anticlericalism" to create a powerful
ideological force which reformed both Church and State in England (p. ix).This is also the position Rosemary O'Day
comes to, albeit with greater hesitancy, in her 1986 work The Debate of the English Reformation, and the view of J. F. Davis
in his 1983 study Heresy and Reformation
in the South-East of England 15201559. Inhis 1992 publication Revolution in Religion:The English Reformation 15301570, David
Loads follows G. R. Elton's earlier work in seeing a long-festering tension
between sacred and secular authorities, as well as Lollardy, as a significant
source for the Henrican Reformation.

Revisionist
writers take issue particularly with the notion that Lollard and anticlerical
ideas gave fertile soil for a popular reception of Henry's reforms.Any reform that would come would be coerced
"from above."In essence, the
first two-thirds of Eamon Duffy's The
Stripping of the Altars is taking up the burden of proof to demonstrate
that traditional religion had a strong and vibrant hold on the English
people.On one level the whole of
Duffy's work can be viewed as a polemic against what revisionists see as an
extreme exaggeration of popular discontent on the eve of the Reformation.

J.
J. Scarisbrick argues that the Reformation was forced upon an unwilling English
people from above in his 1984 volume The
Reformation and the English People.Scarisbrick criticizes those who would "speak of a rising
groundswell of lay discontent with the old order" or of a "growing
'spiritual thirst' during the later Middle Ages" which led to a union
between Crown and people to repudiate Rome, though Rosemary O'Day accuses
Scarisbrick of arguing with a straw man at this point.But while Scarisbrick acknowledges that
pre-Reformation England was not "a land of zealous, God-fearing
Christians,... there is no evidence of a loss of confidence in the old ways, no
mass disenchantment" (p. 12).On
this point, at least, many scholars would seem to agree with revisionists like
Scarisbrick.O'Day, for example,
suggests only that Lollardism and anticlericalism were contributing causes to the acceptance of reforms, but not sources for the Reformation is the
strongest sense of the term.

Still,
revisionists emphasize to a greater extent than those in the Whig-Protestant
tradition that the reformation under Henry was essentially an act of state, not the product of some
larger shift in mentalitι.Scarisbrick
takes aim at the Annales tendencies
of Whig-Protestant interpreters when he writes:

Modern tastes
have tended to prefer the grand, long-term explanations of big events
(especially if they give pride of place to impersonal changes in social
structures or aspirations)....But we
still find it difficult to do without the model of late medieval decline and
alienation  followed by disintegration and then birth and renewal  just as we
still find it difficult to believe that major events in our history have lacked
deep-seated causation or have ever run fundamentally against the 'general will'
(p. 1).

The revisionist argument, in
essence, is that the Henrican Reformation had no sources but the will of Henry
himself and his decidedly more Protestant courtiers.In Duffy's account of the reforms, vice-regent Thomas Cromwell is
the chief director of the attack on traditional piety, backing up his endeavors
with claim to the royal will and the threat of a charge of treason to those who
questioned his activities.It was
Cromwell who actively protected reformist preachers, as did Archbishop Thomas
Cranmer after Cromwell was executed.Reform under Henry VIII was an act of state carried through with little
prior disposition among the people.

3.The Success of the Henrican Reformation

Debate
centers, not merely on the nature and sources of the Henrican Reformation, but
also on the degree to which Protestantism succeeded during the reign of Henry
VIII.Whig-Protestant historians have
tended to see greater Protestant success during Henry's reign than have
revisionists.In an essay titled
"The Early Expansion of Protestantism," in Margo Todd's 1995 Reformation to Revolution:Politics and Religion in Early Modern
England, A. G. Dickens responds to revisionist claims of a weak
Protestantism during Henry's reign.Dickens grants that Protestant success varied from region to region, but
draws on extensive local studies in an attempt to demonstrate that Protestantism
encountered resistance primarily in less populous areas of lesser political
import.In London and in the south and
east of England, Protestantism appears to have expanded throughout Henry's
reign, and even more rapidly during Edward's reign, so as to give it
foundations strong enough to withstand Marian persecution.Protestantism during the Henrican era grows
and to a considerable degree replaces Catholic piety among the populace.To a considerable degree, the Henrican
reformation was a success.

Revisionist
historians have responded by arguing for a weak Protestantism and a strong
Catholicism at the end of Henry's reign.In The Stripping of the Altars, Eamon
Duffy does acknowledge that in many cities Protestantism was strong and even
dominant, even where a numerical majority may have been lacking (p. 479).And Duffy further acknowledges that in some
areas, especially in London, iconoclasm arose out of deeply held Protestant
convictions, but Duffy sees London as an exception, the majority of the kingdom
complying only as a "grudging fulfillment of the will of the Crown"
(p. 480).Duffy agrees that the
majority of the English people complied with reforms, but he insists that this
compliance was not because of any lack of vigor in late medieval piety, but
because of Royal coercion.About the
rapid conformity of parishes with reforms, Duffy writes, "Such conformity
in itself implies nothing about the beliefs of clergy, wardens, or laity in the
parishes" (p. 481).Duffy
follows Christopher Haigh and J. J. Scarisbrick in contending that English
Catholicism remained dominant until well into the reign of Elizabeth I.

In
a work that fits neither the Whig-Protestant nor revisionist paradigm, Robert
Whiting's 1989 study of the southwest of England titled The Blind Devotion of the People:Popular Religion and the English Reformation examines wills,
churchwardens' accounts and material remains of churches and concludes that,
while there were some cities such as Exeter that became predominantly
Protestant during the reigns of Henry and Edward, the majority of southwestern
England moved from a committed Catholicism in 1530 to a religious indifference
which would remain throughout the century.But if there were relatively few committed Protestants, Whiting
suggests, there were even fewer committed Catholics, each religious group being
a minority among a generally ambivalent laity, Catholicism having fled and
Protestantism not yet having filled the void.But despite the possibilities for a synthesis of the Whig-Protestant and
revisionist understandings propsed by Whiting's work, scholars have
nevertheless reached no consensus as to the success of the Henrican
Reformation.

4.The Biased Reader and the Problem of
Competing Narratives.

These
differences between Whig-Protestant and revisionist historians reflect two
broad and competing narratives.The
former school of thought understands the reforms of Henry VIII to have been at
least partially prepared for in advance by the continuing presence of
Lollardism and the rise of anticlericalism.Protestant ideology from the Continent thus found fertile ground in
England, and grew in strength through the reigns of Henry and Edward,
displacing Catholicism as the dominant religion by the coronation of Mary.In this way, a Protestant vision for
biblical gospel life was planted and grew strong enough so as to render it
indestructible through the reign of Mary.The latter, revisionist school understands Henry to have instigated a
violent and destructive attack on traditional religion, an attack the people
did not welcome, but to which they grudgingly conformed.By the coronation of Mary, the people had
had enough and joyfully returned to the old ways, only to be smothered slowly
under the reign of Elizabeth.

Scholars
from both schools of thought argue and counter-argue their positions from
evidences, but they disagree nonetheless.Several issues arise in attempting to understand the two schools'
competing uses of evidence.Some of
these concerns follow:

a.How big must numbers be to
be significant?

This
is an interpretive question that is central to the historian's evaluation of
his evidence.For example, how large a
Lollard presence is large enough to make it a significant factor in encouraging
the acceptance of reforms?In a 1990
article "The English Reformation:A Premature Birth, a Difficult Labour and a Sickly Child,"
Christopher Haigh argues that Lollards were a "weak foundation for a
future Reformation" since in 1521 Lollards comprised "no more than 10
per cent" even of a notoriously Lollard-ridden town like Amersham (p.
451).Is 10 per cent of a town being
Lollard significant or not?Similarly,
A. G. Dickens argues that, since 3,000 early Protestants are known to have
either been tried for heresy of exiled upon Mary's accession to the throne,
they represent only the "tip" of a large iceberg of many thousands of
convinced Protestants.Revisionists
respond that such an iceberg may be very small, since all we see is the tip,
Christopher Haigh remarking, "There may have been no Reformation:indeed, there barely was one" (p. 455).

b.Are all non-Protestants
Catholic?And are all non-Catholics
Protestant?

This
question of what to make of those who neither agitated for nor protested the
arrival of reform is key to both the Whig-Protestant and revisionist paradigms,
and follows upon the question of the significance of numbers.Whiting's study suggests that in
southwestern England neither Protestants nor Catholics amounted to much, the
majority during Henry's reign being unconcerned about such churchly
matters.This question also arises with
the interpretation of will preambles.Most, though not all, scholars seem to agree that a preambleat least
during the reign of Henrywhich is committed to the Blesses Virgin and the
saints and which endows masses usually reflects Catholic piety, while a
preamble committing one's soul to the merits of Jesus Christ alone reflects at
some level Protestant convictions.But
there is disagreement over what to make of apparently "neutral"
wills, which mention only God the Father and Jesus his Son.The move toward such willsby far the most
common by the end of Henry's reignmay indicate increased Protestant
conviction, or they may indicate only a Catholic accommodation to a
state-favored Protestant discourse.

Similarly,
there is debate over what to make of the clergy's willingness to at least go
along with Henry's reforms.The Ten
Articles, for example, demonstrate a compromise between conservative and
radical positions within Henry's government, indicating that, despite Duffy's
suggestion of widespread opposition to reform from the clergy, church leaders
in Convocation were willing at least to go along with not insubstantial
reforms, including decrees that images were not to be venerated but were merely
didactic, justification was by faith, lay Bible reading in English was
encouraged, Purgatory was largely rejected, and most holy days were
dropped.But interpretations vary as to
whether such willingness makes these men Catholic or Protestant.Dickens, for example, highlights the degree
to which reforms were accepted as being the truly amazing story to tell, while
Duffy highlights the degree to which reforms were only partial and at times
opposed as being the story worth telling.Behind these scholars' selection and interpretation of evidence lie
value judgments which determine which narrative is to be told, be it the
narrative of Protestant advance or the narrative of traditional Catholic
resistance.This matter of emphasis is
therefore key to the historian's framing of the discussion, since demonstrating
either a high level or a low level of Protestant conviction is one of the most
important steps in establishing either school's paradigm.

c.What are we to make of
regional variations?

This
same question of emphasis can be seen in the many regional studies to which
appeal is made by the competing schools of thought.For example, Whig-Protestant historians have countered the
revisionist reading by accusing it of selectively emphasizing conservative
parishes to tell the story of reform.In his 1995 article "The Reluctant Reformation?:Dismantling Roman Catholicism in Late Medieval
England", D. Jonathan Grieser accuses Duffy of selectively choosing his
evidence, "Popular agitation for reform goes unnoticed, while popular
agitation against reform receives Duffy's close attention" (p. 182).Duffy argues that the reformed communities
that arose in Essex, Suffolk and Kent, not to mention London itself, do not
represent the "average Englishman."Rather, rural and conservative Morebath, where images were often late
removed and early replaced "almost certainly offers us a more accurate
insight" into what the Reformation meant to the average Englishman (p.
503).In an otherwise favorable review
article in the Journal of Theological
Studies, Ronald Hutton takes Duffy to task on this count, asking why
conservative parishes such as Morebath, Ashburton, and Stanford in the Vale,
and not reformed parishes, best represent the common man (p. 764).Does the heavily Protestant southeast of
England, or the more strongly traditional north and west of Englandor, for
that matter Whiting's indifferent southwestbest represent the average Englishman?Or, for that matter, does it matter what
views the average Englishman held, or only the most influential Englishmen, as Dickens suggests, which would again bias
the study toward the more Protestant London and the southeast?

d.How does one measure
motivation?

The
problem of assessing the motivation behind human actions is one which has taken
center stage in the debate between Whig-Protestant and revisionist
historians.Eamon Duffy, for example,
criticizes Whiting and others for assuming that changes in wills, particularly
relating to bequests for masses, prayers, and charity, reveal an underlying
shift in mentalitι (p. 504), arguing that such a change in wills would be
expected in light of the Crowns hostility to guilds and masses for the dead.Were such changes motivated by religious
conviction or by governmental coercion?Similarly, revisionists argue, over against Dickens and others, that
will preambles, which show a removal of references to Mary and the saints after
1530, do not evidence a change in mentalitι or a new Protestant piety, but
merely a change in conventional form.Actions themselves do not imply motivation.

And
even the best of historians can be accused of inconsistency on this point.Ronald Hutton, for example, criticizes Duffy
for assuming wills under Mary to be sincere (though conformity was more
important during her reign than ever during Henry's) when earlier Duffy had
suggested that wills under Henry and Edward were only "prudent conformity
with government ideology" (p. 764).Similarly, Grieser notes that swift response to reform under Henry is
viewed by Duffy as "grudging obedience," but asks why swift response
to counter-reforms under Mary are viewed as joyous and popularly welcomed (p.
186).

e.To what extent is history
developmental?Do changes in practice
reflect changes in mentalitι?

Similar
to the problem of assessing motivation is the assumption of how change
occurs.Is an historical event in fact
a snapshot of one static mentalitι giving way to another static mentalitι?Is history developmental, so that the
historian's task is to seek out the "roots" of change developing in
an earlier era?To an extent, this has
been the approach of Whig-Protestant scholarship who see a Reformation
"from below" beginning before Henry ever broke with Rome.Or, conversely, does change occur when
individuals coerce and influence things sufficiently to change, not only
events, but the mentalitι as well?This
has been the approach of revisionists, who prefer to speak of a Reformation
almost strictly "from above".

These
approaches may not be mutually exclusive.Even revisionists like Duffy acknowledge that "The Henrican
religious revolution had been preceded by a vigorous campaign against heresy,
in both its familiar Lollard forms and its newer Lutheran forms" (p.
379).Duffy further notes that Kent had
"an established Lollard presence in many parishes" (p. 422).In so doing, he would appear to lend
credence to the notion that the English Protestant Reformation began before it gained state support.Further, Duffy notes that "Iconoclasm
had been a growing feature of the 1520s, and eastern England in the early 1530s
saw a minor epidemic" (p. 381).Revisionists like Duffy at times
acknowledge these pre-Henrican reformist movements, but do not interpret them in
light of future developments.The
difference between the two schools may be largely one of emphasis, the
Whig-Protestant approach assuming a developmental model of history in which the
historian seeks to explain the reality of the present by looking for its roots
in the past.The past is explanatory of
the present, with the result being that history is written largely from the
perspective of the conqueror, not the vanquished.Thus, the English Reformation is the story of advancing
Protestantism.It is this narrative
which revisionists have disputed, which brings into question the broader
problem of narrative.

f.Can Henrican reforms be
studied apart from a larger narrative?

Few
studies exclusively deal with reform under Henry VIII Henry at times seems
caught between two competing narratives which see his reign either as a
beginning or as an end, but rarely as an object in itself.Within a Whig-Protestant narrative, Henry
begins the glories of Protestant England.Within a revisionist narrative, Henry attempts the brutal murder of
traditional religion, failing during his reign, the murder being carried
through by Elizabeth later in the century.In breaking with a Whig-Protestant narrative, revisionists have not
freed Henry from the biases of narrative, but rather interpreted him within an
equally value-driven narrative.Either
way, Henry is part of a larger process, be it a negative or a positive process.Henry is either leading away from something
or leading to something, but his reforms are seldom discussed apart from a
larger narrative.

In
their questioning of the Whig-Protestant narrative, some would suggest that
revisionists have sidelined early English Protestantism, failing to give it
attention in its own right in order to subsume it within a larger revisionist
narrative.Reform becomes instead an
"attack".In what may be too
cute a turn of ironic fate, the very interpretive tactic which Whig-Protestant
Reformation scholars have used on medieval Christianity for years is now being turned
upon themselves.Evidently medievalists
have learned the subtle, polemical power of the narrative, and have sidelined
the Reformation just as the Reformation had sidelined them.While medieval Christianity had for years
been relegated to chapter one of the Reformation, now revisionists are
relegating the Reformation itself to a mere post-script of medieval
Christianity.

Perhaps
one could suggest that these two competing approaches are in fact not competing
at all, but complementary.While questions
of "fact" will still be debated, it is possible that the one school's
narrative views Henry's reforms as Protestants might have viewed them, the
other narrative viewing the reforms as Catholics might have viewed them.Both narratives are dependent in part on
presupposed value judgments, each choosing which evidence is to be chosen and
emphasized, how it is to be interpreted, and which evidence is to be relegated
to the value-driven category of the "exceptional".Unless scholars on either side of the debate
are prepared to argue that their narrative is from the standpoint of
"objectivity", neither the Whig-Protestant nor the revisionist school
can fully exclude the other's interpretation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alsop, J. D."Religious Preambles in Early English Modern Wills as
Formulae", Journal of Ecclesiastical
History, XL, 1989, pp. 1927.

Cross, C.Church and People 1450-1660:the Triumph of the Laity in the English
Church, Glasgow, 1976.

"The
Development of Protestantism in Leeds and Hull 15201640: the Evidence from the
Wills", Northern History, XVIII,
1982, pp. 230238.

"Wills as
Evidence of Popular Piety in the Reformation Period:Leeds and Hull 15201640"
in D. Loades (ed.), The End of Strife:
Death, Reconciliation and Repression in Christian Spirituality, Edinburgh,
1984, pp. 4457.

Cross, C, D. Loades, and J. J. Scarisbrick (eds). Law
and Government Under the Tudors, Cambridge, 1988.

Davis, J. F.Heresy and Reformation in the South-East of
England 15201559, London, 1983.